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Many bands are forced to admit that their best album was probably their first. Grooms can take pleasure in having just released their high watermark four albums in. That album, Comb the Feelings Through Your Hair, marries their sense of melody and pop appeal to a level of musical skill befitting a band that has stayed together long enough to see personnel come and go, but emerge stronger in the process. A three-piece, Grooms manage to make their music rhythmically complex (thanks in no small part to drummer Steve Levine, who recently enjoyed notoriety on TV’s Better Call Saul) without overcomplicating it, and that works especially well live. Watching the three men onstage, you more appreciate how their arrangements leave room to feel what each player is doing.

This show at Music Hall of Williamsburg, on a bill shared with A Place to Bury Strangers (that set here), celebrated the new record’s release, but didn’t park the setlist there. Starting with a rapid succession of new songs, Grooms then dug back in to 2013’s under-toured Infinity Caller and even their debut Rejoicer, the band gave us a sense of the continuity in their music as well as some of the new ideas percolating in Comb the Feelings. While the album itself is the band’s best-produced to date, adding lush electronics to the band’s guitar-bass-drums mix, the live versions proved that the record isn’t just a success on that account. Songs like the title track are more than just well put together; they’re just good songs. Grooms were one of many bands tied to Death By Audio (including A Place to Bury Strangers), and now, like their scene itself, they will enter a different phase. So far, it’s working for them.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK41 microphones in the soundboard cage. The sound quality is quite good for a straight audience recording. Enjoy!

This Will Destroy You, of San Marcos, TX, just crossed the decade mark as a band last year, with the excellent record Another Language. In the broad sense, they share company with the dynamic instrumental bands that get lumped together as “post-rock” — Mogwai, Explosions In the Sky, Caspian, etc. But if this two-night stand of shows presented by BrooklynVegan at Saint Vitus proved anything, it’s that they don’t let labels stop them. Saint Vitus, best-known as NYC’s destination for the heaviest of heavy music, made a good fit for the band, as they led off with the thunderous “Little Smoke” that pummeled us from start to finish. TWDY may not be a black metal band, but their sonics are definitely toward the darker end of the spectrum, a kind of soundtrack to the end of the world.

But just when you think you’re going to get nothing but 80 minutes of soft-loud dynamics and blaring guitars, TWDY changes things up. Bursts of electronics seep in, between the ratcheting drumbeats and the mournful guitars of “A Three-Legged Workhorse”. Or there’s “Grandfather Clock”, basically a full-on IDM track, followed by the texturally dense standout track from Another Language, “Dustism”. But if the band proved there was more to them than just getting loud, when they were loud, they made it count, as on the climax to “Black Dunes” or “There Are Some Remedies Worse Than The Disease”. This show ran a touch longer than the previous night’s effort, closing with the ironically-titled “Quiet”. This burner of a Friday night show had been anything but.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4V cardiod microphones and a soundboard feed of the mix by TWDY’s engineer (if you have his name, please give him a shout out). As with everything at Saint Vitus, the sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

M.C. Taylor, aka Hiss Golden Messenger, had a hell of a 2014. Among his accomplishments — signing with Merge Records, who released Lateness of Dancers to criticalacclaim; appearing on Letterman; touring the U.S. and Europe extensively; serving as de facto lead vocalist for the Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co. tribute shows in honor of Jason Molina; and producing and appearing on Alice Gerrard‘s Grammy-nominated Follow the Music. After being everywhere in 2014, Taylor inaugurated 2015 back on his home turf, with an extravaganza of a show that combined a bunch of his recent activities into one wild ride of an evening. As Hiss Golden Messenger now tours as a full unit, Taylor decided to bill this as “M.C. Taylor and Friends” rather than the band name; the night’s main lineup included some, but not all, of HGM’s touring component. This special show was a benefit for NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina, who have been leading the ongoing fight for choice in North Carolina.

After kicking off with a couple of Poor Moon classics, the “friends” started to come out in force. Gerrard joined Taylor for three numbers, including a cover of Merle Haggard’s “You Take Me For Granted”. Then it was Phil Cook‘s chance at the vocal mike, a turnabout from his normal role in HGM. The lucky crowd then got a second look at Taylor’s collaboration on the Songs: Ohia / Magnolia Electric Co. material, which was first debuted in the Triangle last January. Magnolia Electric Co.’s Jason Groth came up onstage for those three songs, including perhaps Molina’s finest number, “Final Transmission.” Then it was back to HGM for a bit, until the night’s final number, Taylor’s first known cover of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” shown on the video above.

This performance was recorded by my friend and prolific Triangle-area recordist Dan Schram, whose video is showing below. Dan kindly provided me the audio files, to which I applied a little additional mastering and mixing “sparkle”. The sound quality is outstanding. We hope you enjoy it, and more importantly, that you will support the cause for which the music was made, NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina.

It was a few decades ago that a friend of mine happened to spin Helmet’s landmark ‘Betty‘ album for me and set the hook for my enthusiasm for this band. Now touring to honor the 20th anniversary of this record, these dates include a front-to-back playing of it as well as a second set drawing from their vast catalog of songs. In a day and age where a number of bands are doing this, the kicker is that ‘Betty‘ is an amazing album and easily made it onto my personal list of “desert island discs” some time ago. The second of three very sold-out NYC area shows (the recording from the Saint Vitus gig is HERE) found Helmet firing on all cylinders. Frontman Page Hamilton has surrounded himself with a roster of superb musicians (drummer Kyle Stevenson, guitarist Dan Beeman and bassist Dave Case) and these concerts showcased a very well rehearsed and tight group that obviously have the chops to play anything you can throw at them. In addition to fielding a few crowd requests, Helmet dug out some deep cuts including “Impressionable”, “Repetition” and fan-favorite, “Sinatra”. In a nutshell, they sounded fantastic and more than lived up to the legacy of this material.

With Helmet’s soundman, Rubes, at the board with assistance from Bowery Ballroom’s FOH, Kenny, the venue’s sound on this night was, as we’ve come to expect, great. Combining our microphones with the soundboard feed that Page asked us to use, our recording is excellent. We hope you like what you hear as much as we did. Enjoy!

Special thanks to Helmet, Brian and Chad at Maine Road, and Kieran and the staff at Bowery Ballroom for making this recording possible and for their courtesy and cooperation.

Stream “Rollo”:

Stream “Give It”:

Direct download of the complete show in MP3 [HERE]
Direct download of the complete show in FLAC [HERE]

If any of the links are no longer working, email nyctaperwith a request for the download location of the files.

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.

If you download this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Helmet, visit their website and Facebook page, and purchase their official releases and merchandise [HERE] at Amazon, iTunes, or your favorite record store or retailer. And definitely go see Helmet live.

Helmet is taking a look back this tour and celebrating the 20th anniversary of their seminal album Betty beginning each show by playing the album straight through. On Sunday night the band added a special wrinkle by playing a small club the size of which they haven’t played in years. As Page Hamilton noted at the first break in the action, the “first Helmet show ever” was played at a club very similar in style, location and size to Saint Vitus — the late great Lauterbach’s in Brooklyn. For a time in the 80s and 90s, Lauterbach’s was the place for punk, hardcore and metal in the “outer boroughs”. And out it was, all the way in the South Slope on Prospect Avenue. And like the long gone venue, Helmet themselves are a product of that era in Brooklyn. As the band’s founder and only remaining original member Hamilton was a known quantity in music circles when Helmet formed in 1989, but there was a period when places like Lauterbach’s were their venues of choice. Helmet would go on to play a vast arragy of huge venues in the 1990s. While Saint Vitus in 2015 is an established and well-respected home for heavy music, its nice to see that Page has a sense of history — respect enough for the band’s legion of fans — to return to his roots and come “full circle” as he described. For this set, Helmet ripped through Betty in forty-five minutes staying pretty close to the album’s sound. The final half of the show has varied throughout this tour and on Sunday we got some rare oldies and of course the hits. I was particularly impressed with the raging extended version of “Driving Nowhere” which gave Page a chance to stretch out and display his guitar chops. We are streaming that track below. The Betty tour continues in the US and Canada through the end of March, dates here.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps mounted in front of the soundboard and mixed with a feed that Page earlier in the week had encouraged us to use. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

We also recorded the Bowery Ballroom show on Saturday and that will be coming very soon.

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request, and feel free to repost the Soundcloud links

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Helmet, visit their website, and purchase their official releases, including Betty, directly from their web store [HERE] or from your favorite online retailer.

Since 2007, Mind Over Mirrors has been the solo outlet for Jaime Fennelly’s explorations with an Indian pedal harmonium processed through analog electronics and synthesizers. With the recent cassette release of The Voice Calling on Immune Recordings, Fennelly is joined by vocalist Haley Fohr, better known as Circuit des Yeux. At Union Pool, the duo played in near darkness, set up on the floor rather than on the stage, with Fennelly and Fohr facing inwards towards an impressive array of electronics. The crowd gathered around close as the room became a tight fit with the bulk of gear arranged mid-floor. The dark stillness punctured only by the swirling rhythms of Fennelly’s harmonium and Fohr’s ritualistic vocal paroxysms, the subtle glow of electronics and the occasional clinking of glasses at the bar. The three songs, all off of The Voice Calling, are played as a single piece, one subtly transmuting into the next. Performed live, each song eclipses its recorded counterpart’s length as if expanding to fill its new, larger container and seeking out new spaces to inhabit. The setting necessitates a hyper-acuteness to the experience and at the set’s conclusion there is a collective release of held breath as the tension between harmonium and voice resolves. It’s unclear if the collaboration between Fennelly and Fohr is intended to be long-term or whether it’s a one-off experiment; but either way, the results both live and on the album are compelling.

I recorded this set with the AKGs clamped to the balcony combined with a board feed from Union Pool FOH Leah. The sound is excellent. Enjoy!

Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.

Mind Over Mirrors
2015-02-05
Union Pool
Brooklyn, NY

Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by Eric PH

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